


an unpleasant conversation

by starsshinedarkly77



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Compliant up to episode 21, Character Insight, Character Study, Gen, I have no idea how to fucking tag this, Mothman, Motorcycles, Nonbinary Character, Post Episode 21, Talking, egg nog
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 03:17:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17820806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsshinedarkly77/pseuds/starsshinedarkly77
Summary: Following the murders at the Little Dipper, Hollis and Keith pay a visit to a certain Winnebago.Requested by sstarship on tumblr.





	an unpleasant conversation

**Author's Note:**

> Long time no post. I really have no good description of what this is but I tried! sstarship on tumblr asked me for "Hollis and the gang interrogating the Mothman" so I hope this suffices. Please enjoy!

The last remnants of tawny sunset are cutting through the branches of the pines when Hollis sees Keith straighten on his bike in their peripheral vision. They follow his gaze to a parking lot just off the main road the handful of Hornets are riding along in a loose ‘v’ formation, Hollis in the lead, Keith flanking their right side. The lot in question is scarcely more than a slab of cracked concrete, half-cloaked by young trees that have grown in between it and the highway since the lot was last in active use. _Abandoned_ would be acceptable modifier to its description, if it weren’t for the rusted out Winnebago parked in the back corner of the lot.

Keith turns his head, nods, and Hollis nods back, lifting an arm to signal the rest of the pack behind them. Still in one cohesive formation, the line of motorcycles turns in a long, lazy loop and enters the parking lot. Hollis is the first to stop, about ten yards from the door of the Winnebago, and the rest follow suit behind them, wordlessly climbing off their bikes and removing their helmets. Keith, still at Hollis’s right, looks distinctly nervous.

“With me,” Hollis says to him, and he flinches as if they’ve shouted instead of spoken. “Everyone else, be ready. For anything.”

With that, Hollis pulls the aluminum bat out of the saddlebag of their bike, slings it casually over their left shoulder, and approaches the door of the Winnebago.

The metal steps creak underneath their weight as they climb them, and Hollis knows before they reach a fist up to pound on the door that the person inside must already know they’re there.

Sure enough, only a few seconds pass between Hollis’s knock and the door of the Winnebago creaking open. In the cautious sliver between door and doorframe, a single round, red spectacle lens peers out at them. With the eye behind completely invisible through the opaque glass, Hollis feels, rather than sees, the gaze that passes over them, and then over Keith, before the door swings open all the way, revealing one of the strangest individuals Hollis has ever seen in their life.

Taller, taller than Hollis, with lanky, pale white limbs emerging from a loose-fitting, lightly stained tank top and washed out jeans rolled up at the ankles. A shock of silvery white hair with dark roots at the very crown of his head. Round red spectacles showing nothing but a reflection of Hollis’s own face, Keith hovering nervously behind them. And perhaps most unsettling, a wide, yellowed grin punctuated with two rather pointy incisors.

“Do come in, Hollis,” he says, and looking behind them, “Keith.”

Hollis hears Keith swallow dryly and only barely resists the urge to elbow him. Instead, they step into the Winnebago.

A wave of hot, moist air rolls over them as they do. The source of the sudden heatwave isn’t difficult to identify; the interior of the Winnebago is illuminated with faint orange light that radiates from a series of old-fashioned space heaters that occupy nearly every available surface inside the RV. Where there aren’t space heaters, there are piles of papers, and where there aren’t piles of papers, there are dozens of mismatched glasses full of a thick, yellowy-white liquid, the smell of which is far from pleasant.

Hollis wrinkles their nose slightly as they step further into the Winnebago, clearing space for Keith to step in behind them; as soon as he does so, the trailer door creaks shut once more, and the three of them are completely alone.

“Pardon the mess,” their host says, and shifts a hefty stack of newspapers from a wicker chair and onto the floor. “I’d say I wasn’t expecting visitors, but, well…”

He kicks a crate out from underneath a table, and gives Hollis another wide, unnerving grin.

“Please, have a seat.”

Keith drops down onto the crate with the haste and heaviness of someone who has been kicked in the back of the knees. Hollis, however, simply lets the bat slip off their shoulder and rests its tip against the Winnebago’s stained orange carpet.

“I prefer to stand,” they say. The red-spectacled man leans back against the refrigerator, crossing his arms across his chest.

“Suit yourself,” he says, perfectly pleasant and unconcerned, though Hollis wonders if he isn’t inspecting the bat as he speaks. “May I ask what brings the two of you to my humble abode this evening?”

“I was under the impression that you were already supposed to know that,” Hollis remarks lightly, watching carefully to see the reaction their words will inspire. The man’s smile tightens minutely.

“I find it…unsettles, most people, to approach the point right away rather than sneaking up on it as if they never intended to reach it at all. I try not to skip the pleasantries that polite society typically mandates.”

“I’m not really one for pleasantries. Or for societal mandates.”

Hollis feels another searching glance rake over them.

“So you are not,” the man says. He sounds oddly pleased. “Well, then, let us cut right to the chase. I know you and your friends are in quite the hurry, and it would be impolite of me not to attempt to steer you away from a dead end as quickly as possible.”

Hollis taps the end of the bat against the carpet once, twice. “A dead end?”

“Oh, yes. You are here to determine my level of involvement in the murders at the Little Dipper, are you not?” He picks up a glass from the counter and takes a sip.

“Yes,” Hollis says slowly, watching the viscous yellow-white liquid pass across the man’s thin, dry lips. “And you’ll understand if I find it suspect that you already knew about those, I’m sure.”

The man’s eyebrows raise over the lenses of his spectacles. “News travels fast in a town like Kepler.”

“‘Specially if you can see it coming before it happens, right?”

Apparently Hollis hasn’t quite managed to keep the heat out of their voice, because Keith glances quickly up at them with wide eyes, his hands anxiously gripping the sides of the crate he’s seated on. The red-spectacled man sighs briefly and sets his glass gently back down on the counter.

“I…understand how that must seem to you, Hollis, I do. And I wish I could give you a better explanation, but…there is a difference between seeing and knowing, and another difference still between knowing and doing.”

It’s frustratingly esoteric but Hollis manages to pluck enough meaning from between the words to relax their white-knuckled grip on the handle of the bat.

“You can blame me,” the man continues, “And you may even be right to do so, but I’m not the killer you’re looking for, and I do think you already know that.” He turns his head to look at Keith, his broad grin returning. “I just had the misfortune of being the only monster you’re aware of.”

Keith swallows audibly, paling, and looks back down at the floor.

Hollis, meanwhile, is doing their best to pull themselves out of a sea of turbulent and unwanted emotions. The man is right - they’d known Keith’s “moth man” was a dead end before they’d even started down that path, but it was the only lead they had - the only lead that didn’t come from that Aubrey girl and her two old geezer friends, the only thing Hollis knew _to_ do. Doing was essential, now, necessary, required, and had been since the moment Hollis heard the screams and saw the blood and felt a veil lift from over the entire world, a blind they hadn’t even been aware of until it had dissolved to pieces and shown them the dark that lay beyond. Doing was essential because the only other option was _feeling,_ feeling too much and showing too much and being _afraid._ There was no time to be afraid. Not if they were doing. Only if they stopped. Only if they had to slow down enough to admit they had no idea what the _hell_ to do next.

Interrupting their own internal pity party, Hollis yanks the bat up off the floor, swings it over their shoulder, startling Keith so much in the process that he almost falls off his crate.

“Come on,” they say to him. “This was a fucking waste of time.”

Keith looks relieved, and scuttles obediently to the door of the Winnebago, and Hollis follows suit. Keith cracks open the door, inviting in a stream of cold night air, and it strikes across Hollis’s face like a slap.

Hollis closes their eyes against the cold. Settles. Decides.

They reach past Keith to push the door of the Winnebago shut once more, ignoring his faint whimper of protest, and turn back to the red-spectacled man.

He already knows what they’re about to ask.

He grins and removes his spectacles.


End file.
